Gardner: Trout deserved better in MVP voting

Nov. 16, 2012
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Angels rookie center fielder Mike Trout won the AL Rookie of the Year award with his outstanding season, which included a .326 average, 129 runs scored and 49 stolen bases. / Gary A. Vasquez, US Presswire

by Steve Gardner, USA TODAY Sports

by Steve Gardner, USA TODAY Sports

The statistical revolution that's permeating the baseball world hasn't won widespread acceptance just yet.

Sure, Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez won the American League Cy Young Awards in 2009 and 2010 with less-than-stellar win totals. But the 2012 AL MVP race was the first major litmus test for the kind of in-depth analysis that's already taking place in virtually every major league front office.

That's why it's so puzzling to see the Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout debate fall largely along the lines of "baseball people" vs. "statheads" â?? but with the roles seemingly reversed.

The traditionalists cling to their cherished stats (particularly batting average and RBI), while the sabermetricians prefer to consider a player's overall contributions (including baserunning and defense).

It's up to the 28 individual voters to determine their own definition of value, but where this year's writers got it wrong is that value in one particular area shouldn't trump value in many different areas.

Miguel Cabrera led the AL in batting average, home runs and RBI this season, becoming the first player to win the Triple Crown since 1967. He also played for a Detroit Tigers team that won the Central Division title.

But are those the things that really matter the most when it comes to determining the most valuable player? What if Josh Hamilton or Curtis Granderson had hit two more home runs and prevented Cabrera from winning the Triple Crown? What if the Chicago White Sox win four more games and Cabrera's Tigers don't make the playoffs?

Without Cabrera's performance changing even one bit, the two major points in his MVP case come tumbling down if another player or another team had been able to perform just a little bit better.

Now Cabrera is clearly a deserving candidate for MVP â?? and it's a shame he'd never won before, despite finishing in the top five in five of the past seven seasons â?? but take away all of the outside factors and it's clear Mike Trout simply had the better overall season.

It's important to note that Cabrera and Trout are two different types of players, so it makes one-to-one comparisons more difficult. But let's try.

Batting average is great but on-base percentage is better. While Cabrera did lead the AL with a .330 average, Trout finished ahead of Cabrera in on-base percentage (.399 to .393).

By winning the Triple Crown, Cabrera did something that hadn't been done in 45 years â?¦ but by scoring 129 runs and stealing 49 bases (both tops in the majors) in addition to hitting 30 homers, Trout did something this season that had never been done in baseball history. By anyone.

Offensively, the two were clearly the two best at what they do this season. But we haven't even considered what the players have done on defense.

Trout's speed allows him to cover a tremendous amount of ground in the outfield. He made several memorable catches and according to Fangraphs.com, Trout's defensive skills saved the Angels 21 runs over the course of the season. Many experts even felt he deserved a Gold Glove in center field.

While Cabrera deserves credit for moving from first base to third base and enable the Tigers to sign Prince Fielder, he was a liability there defensively. He cost the Tigers an estimated four runs more than an average third baseman, according to Fangraphs and the defensive metric Ultimate Zone Rating had Cabrera ranked as the worst full-time third baseman in the majors.

If we try to put everything together, the traditionalists start unloading their heavy artillery. (Yes, now it's time to bring up WAR.)

Baseball experts have spent decades trying to find a way to quantify all of a player's contributions and boil it down into one number. The best measurement we have right now is what's known as Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

There are different ways to calculate it, mostly because of the difficulty of evaluating defense. But in every instance, Trout's all-around game puts him ahead of Cabrera. Baseball-Reference.com has Trout atop the AL at 10.7 and Cabrera fourth at 6.9. Fangraphs.com has Trout first at 10.0 and Cabrera third at 7.1.

Finally, the argument that Cabrera carried his team to the playoffs is the weakest of them all. Again, he had a great season and he hit .333 in September with 11 homers and 30 RBI as the Tigers won the division title.

But the Tigers finished with an 88-74 record and .543 winning percentage and were aided in their playoff push by the White Sox's late-season collapse. Meanwhile, the Angels (89-73, .549) actually won more games than the Tigers, but finished third in the powerful AL West.

Trout's season is even more impressive because it came against tougher competition. In fact, the Angels were 6-14 the day before Trout was promoted from the minors, but went 83-59 (.585) the rest of the way with him.

The fact that the Angels may have just missed the playoffs because they didn't have Trout for that first month may even be the best argument for why should have been the AL's most valuable player.